Chapter XXXVII: Vindicated

In the gay morning air the car rushed over the high plain, carrying two lovers to the grim Pele.

Olwen had informed Parkinson that she was going to stay a few days with Mrs. Guyse, but that she must leave her behind, as she was not sure of there being the necessary accommodation. She therefore wished her to remain at the Seven Spears until further orders. As a fact, she felt most uncertain of the treatment her maid would be likely to receive at the hands of the ayah.

Parkinson listened grimly, with an offended air that made Miss Innes feel that a month's notice must be impending. She hoped it was, for she knew that this woman could never be an inmate of her future home.

Early that morning Ezra had ridden into Caryngston upon one of the farm horses. He came to bring news of the sudden grave increase of Madam's illness, and to fetch Dr. Balmayne.

Olwen's experience of sickness, gained so recently, caused her to be very prompt in action. She telegraphed to Newcastle for a nurse, begged Dr. Balmayne to send his car to Picton Bars to bring her up when she arrived, and offered to take him now to the Pele in her own fast car, and to send him back by the same means.

She also insisted that Ninian should telegraph to Wolf the news of his mother's condition before leaving the town.

There was embarrassment on both sides at the first meeting between Miss Innes and the doctor, especially when Ninian, at her special request, announced to him the fact of their engagement.

He warmly congratulated the bridegroom elect, but was unable to feel that the lady was to be congratulated. However, he concealed his opinion as best he could. Having regard as much to his feeling as to their own, Olwen placed him beside Goddard on the journey, so that Nin and she might sit together. The night seemed to have worked a miracle in her lover. The light had come back to his eye, the glow to his cheek; he looked ten years younger already, as she assured him when she came down to breakfast and found him hungrily in wait for her. He commenced the day's amenities by the remark that he hardly knew which he wanted most, his girl or his breakfast.

"I object to being lifted up like a baby," said she reprovingly, as she smoothed her rumpled hair after his fervent greeting.

"I always did think what fun it would be to carry you about," was the unabashed reply. "I very nearly tried, that last evening at the Pele, when you declared you had a great mind to say 'Yes.'"

"If you had, Nin, I should never have run away," she whispered. "You could have held me with one hand, with a word, a look. You knew that, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't. I only knew that I couldn't, somehow. I had to let you go. But in my heart I thought--if you did care--and Sunia kept on telling me you did--that you would forgive me. Oh, my aunt, if you knew how I hoped and craved and expected day after day. It never dawned on me that you would drop me utterly. I don't know what I expected, but not that!"

"If you had known beforehand that I should drop you utterly, would you still have told Grandpapa?"

"Oh, I had to tell him in any case," he answered simply.

She then described how her grandfather had received from him the impression that he felt no attachment to her, but had been tempted only by her fortune. She made him understand something of her own agony of humiliation, and of what she had gone through before her impulsive flight.

He had no idea that Madam had told her of her own loveless marriage--of how another Ninian Guyse had wedded her for her fortune. "It was always running in my head," the girl confessed, "I could never forget the exact words she used--'_He was as deep in debt as I in love._' You can understand how exactly it seemed to apply."

"The thing I thought you would find it hardest to forgive," said he, "if you ever found it out, was our tampering with your correspondence. I loathed the necessity, but having once started on the beastly plot, it had to be done thoroughly, for we knew we had very little time--you must hear before long that you were an heiress, which would shut my mouth--and, after all our care, the one letter which gave the show away came straight to your hands through Dr. Balmayne! I think the knowledge of that was what made me throw up the dirty game. I said, Providence is taking care of this little girl. Am I such a hound as to interfere?"

"It was too late then," was her low reply. "You had done the mischief."

"I somehow felt that it was so, wild as it sounded. It seemed impossible to believe that you were not feeling something of the storm that was shaking me. I thought if I could take you and hold you tight, I might make you believe in me, even when I had told you the truth. But you were too wise----"

"Too cowardly!"

"Too well protected by guardian angels!"

So they talked; and by the time they reached the tower they had talked out all remnants of misunderstanding.

Mrs. Baxter had been on the watch for the doctor's car, and came out into the courtyard. Her face, as she saw who sat with the master, was a curious study.

"Why, if it isn't oor yoong leddy!" said she, staring.

Olwen, lifted out like a doll by Ninian, and set down upon the stones, ran to the good woman and gave her gay greeting.

"Oh, I am glad to see you! How's poor Madam?"

"A little easier-like this morning," was the answer. Nin went off at once to take the doctor upstairs, after asking Mrs. Baxter to show Goddard where to keep the car, and to provide for his sleeping accommodation.

"Where's ayah?" asked Olwen eagerly.

"She was upstairs with Madam," said Mrs. Baxter. Olwen guessed that Nin would send her down, but without telling her who was awaiting her. In fact this was just what he did.

"You're wanted below, ayah," he said to her, when Balmayne had been ushered into the sick room.

Olwen stood in the hall, talking softly to Mrs. Baxter, and noiselessly the curtains parted and the little brown face, framed in its saree, made its appearance.

The Hindu stopped short. For a moment the surprise was overwhelming. She had wondered what had come to her sahib, dashing off on horseback quite late in the evening, and not returning all night--a thing he had not done since she could remember. Just now as he spoke to her upstairs, the light in his eyes, the thrill in his voice had moved her as she had not been moved since first he had come home from his German prison, broken, changed, despairing.

Here stood the answer to the puzzle, and in a swift moment Sunia was on her knees, holding Olwen's hands, kissing them repeatedly, murmuring soft Hindustani words of caressing.

"Ah, Sunia, you have been at your wicked spells," laughed the girl, "all the time I have been away! I have heard you calling, calling, never ceasing. I have struggled hard, but I am here at last--and I am never, never going away again!"

The woman threw up her hands with a wild gesture. "Oh, Missee, my Missee, if only one little week--few days ago! You come too late! My sahib lost his castle! He never be really happy now, even with you!"

"I'm so vain that I think he _would_ be really happy, even without the castle, as long as he had me! But never mind, dear, it isn't too late! He has got back his old tower all right! I _was_ in time, only just in time!"

For the first time she saw Sunia overpowered. Sinking to the floor, the woman wrapped herself in the folds of her saree and her thin form shook with the intensity of her feeling.

"Sunia," softly said Olwen presently, "do you feel better? Can you listen?"

The woman raised her face, all quivering. "And I ask my gods to curse my Missee!" she cried in anguish.

"Well, but they knew I didn't deserve to be cursed, so they took no notice," cried Olwen playfully. "Here I am, alive and well, and all the rest of my life I am just going to try and make your sahib happy. Now you must wipe your eyes and get up, because I have brought my luggage with me, and I am going to stay here."

Sunia bounded to her feet. "Ayah dear," laughed the soft little voice, "I am rich now, very rich, and I have a maid who waits on me. May I send for her to come and be my maid here?"

Violent rage transformed Sunia's face. "She not come here," muttered she; "I see to my Missee, I dress my Missee for her wedding."

"You shall, I promise you," replied the girl, fairly hugging the little woman.

It was a busy day. They had the nurse installed by soon after midday, and at about three Olwen was admitted to kiss and smile at her future mother-in-law.

Mrs. Guyse was looking terribly ill and thin, but she was fully conscious and evidently took great pleasure in the sight of the girl.

Olwen told her that she must make haste and get strong enough to be moved, so that she could go away to the south of Europe and grow quite well. Would she not like that? Wolf could take her, while Nin and she went for their wedding journey.

Madam seemed quite pleased, and smiled; but there was a curious expression in her eyes as she turned them on the girl. She pressed the hand that held hers. "You are good and kind, my child. We treated you very badly. You have returned good for evil, and I could not bear for you to be--unhappy."

"Unhappy, dear? I hope there is little chance of that. Nobody in the world was ever so happy as I."

"I have been very ill," said Madam faintly, "and that makes one think. I have lain here and thought ... and there is something ... something you ought to know. Will you send Nin to me, my dear?"

"Don't you think," urged Olwen, "that you should wait until you are stronger? It is very likely that Nin will tell me the thing you have in mind. We have had so little time as yet to talk things over. Try not to worry."

Madam hesitated. "Well, perhaps. But I think he will not tell you. He has never told me, often as I have begged him to. However, you can ask him. Ask him--as a message from me--tell him that I adjure him, before marrying you, to tell you the truth about--about Lily Martin."

Lily Martin! Her name had vanished from Olwen's very thoughts. That story, which had so occupied her mind formerly as to blot out any other idea, had now receded into the dim background. However, she hastened to reassure Madam. "Dear, he told me all about that, long, long ago, while I was here."

Madam smiled. "I think not."

Olwen's heart beat. To Madam in her weak state she dare not say anything of what she knew. The patient lay still for a few minutes, then in a weak voice, gave some directions. Olwen was to find a key, unlock the bureau in Madam's sitting-room, take thence a dispatch-box, open that, and bring the envelope it contained to her.

Carefully carrying out instructions, the girl easily found the required paper, and brought it to the bedside.

"Open it--look," whispered Madam.

Olwen drew from the envelope another, which had been partially burned. This was the remains of a letter which had been through the post. It was thus addressed:

Mrs. Ninian Guyse,
3, Lockerbie Terra
Southamp

The remains of the address had been burned away. She looked at it in some bewilderment.

"The day that Miss Martin tried to kill herself, she burnt a lot of old letters in the billiard-room grate," whispered the sick woman. "I came in and found this, which had fallen out of the fire. I picked it up, thinking that some day--some day--I would have the truth from Ninian. I hid it carefully, and was thankful it was I who found it. If there had been an inquest, it would have been terribly strong evidence. As it was, it all passed off. I suppose he has been keeping her ever since, and that is how he gets rid of so much money; but I have never spoken to him of it."

"Is it his writing?" asked the girl.

"Yes."

"I will talk to him about it," said Olwen quietly; "but I think you may be certain that he is not to blame."

"If I could be! In other ways, he has been a good son, in spite of his odd manner. You really love him, in spite of his manners, my dear?"

"Because of them, I believe," laughed the girl, bending to kiss her and to hide the colour in her cheeks. "I wouldn't change him."

She said nothing to Ninian of what had passed until after tea that evening. They had it in the dining-room, and grew very foolish over their memories of the last time they had shared the function.

Afterwards, resisting the lure of his desire to play and be silly like two children, she told him there was something she must speak about, of a not particularly pleasant character; and that she demanded his full attention.

"Madam surprised me to-day," she went on, "by speaking on a subject which I would far rather were not mentioned between us; but what she said makes it necessary that the whole matter should be cleared up. She and you have never understood each other. You think she loves you less than Wolf, because she has a feeling of resentment against you, for making her live here, contrary to her inclination. But that's only partly true. She has something else to charge you with; and she has told me what it is."

He was evidently surprised, and asked for an explanation with all the seriousness that she could desire.

"Before I say anything of what Madam showed me to-day," she continued, "I want you to read a letter which reached me in London some days ago. Its contents may not be news to you. I am inclined to suppose that they are not. The affair had faded from my mind, for the thought of you drives out everything else; but after what your mother said, I am sure you ought to know the whole truth."

So saying, she put into his hands the letter she had received from the _ci-devant_ Lily Martin.

She watched his face with acute curiosity as he read, and she could see that he was unprepared for what he found.

"_Wolf's wife!_ ... That girl!" was all he said; but his voice expressed extreme distaste.

Laying down the letter he propped his chin on his hands, and puckered his mouth into a soundless whistle; then, flinging himself back in his chair, "This is a facer for me," he muttered.

Leaning forward, she laid a hand caressingly on his forehead, stroking back the hair. "Nin, did you know nothing of it?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly, no, I didn't. I don't say that I didn't know he was in some matrimonial scrape, for I did. If it hadn't been that he was not free he wouldn't have allowed me to have the first innings with you. He was awfully fed up about that. He has drained me of every penny I could spare, and most of those I couldn't spare, in order to continue her allowance. He always said she was consumptive, and that it was only an affair of a few years. I never knew it was Lily Martin. Why, she must have been married to him when she first came to us! Help!"

There was consternation in his accents. Olwen looked into the depths of his eyes, so limpid and boyish. How could she ever have thought this man untrustworthy?

After a while she produced the burnt envelope, telling him where his mother had found it.

To her relief, he seemed to attach small importance to it.

"If she is really Wolf's wife," he said absently, "that explains things. She wrote Mrs. Ninian Guyse on the back of a photo which she must have left by accident in the pages of a book. I thought when I found it that it was just her confounded cheek; but she had right on her side. You know that Ninian is the typical Guyse name in our senior branch of the family. Thus my father named his twin sons Ninian Wilfrid and Wilfrid Ninian respectively, so that if one of us got knocked out the survivor might still be a Ninian Guyse. Wolf's wife might almost as well call herself Mrs. Ninian Guyse as you might. As he wanted the thing kept dark, he would be very likely to use his other name. It was an obvious precaution. As to the writing, Wolf and I write so alike that our hands are often mistaken for one another. There is, however, one letter that we make quite differently, and that is our initial N. I always write it plain like a printed N, and Wolf writes it as on this address. My mother might not notice that, because I am always with her and she doesn't often see my signature. But I think I could easily convince any impartial person that I didn't write that address." He felt in his pocket, brought out some letters from his brother addressed to himself, and showed the initial N exactly as it appeared on the letter. Then he went to the bureau and fetched out a letter which he had just written to a local correspondent. The N at the foot, where his signature appeared, was, as he had said, quite different. "Rather tiresome, isn't it, that I can only clear myself in Madam's eyes by incriminating Wolf? She thinks a hundred times more of him than she does of me. I can't tell tales of him."

She contemplated his serious, absorbed face, and laughed out aloud in the completeness of her relief. "Oh, Nin," said she, "you _are_ a darling!"

His expression changed like lightning to its most wicked twinkle.

"Come," he said, "we're getting on. That's the very first pretty name you ever called me--are you aware of that, my porcelain rogue?"

"I prefer being a school-marm and a white crane and a blue thing with a red nose to any amount of darlings," was her contented reply.

Madam's condition changed for the better that evening. The following afternoon, when the Colonel arrived, he found her much improved.

He had been a good deal mystified, upon his arrival at Picton Bars, to find Miss Innes's Rolls-Royce and chauffeur awaiting him.

Goddard told him that the young lady was staying at the Pele, and thus he was more or less prepared for the state of affairs which he found upon arrival.

Ninian and Olwen were having tea in the banqueting-hall. They were sitting in the oriel, and at the moment of his entry, Ninian was wholly absorbed in demonstrating that he could fold his fiancee's hand within his own, so that it was completely concealed, and could be withdrawn without his unlocking a single finger.

Olwen received her future brother-in-law graciously enough, but with a new reserve in her manner which he felt uncomfortably.

Ninian explained to him their plan, which was to be married at once without any kind of pomp, so that he might take his bride to Italy or the Pyrenees until his health was thoroughly re-established.

"I shall invite nobody but my grandfather and my two unmarried aunts," said Olwen; "but there is one person whose presence I particularly desire, and that is your wife, Wilfrid."

"My wife!" he said, with first a flash of anger, and then a hesitation, a dark look at his twin. There was a pause, which they left it to him to break.

"I had no idea that my brother knew," he said at last, very coldly.

"He did not until I told him," replied Miss Innes. "Your wife wrote to me. I feel sure that she wrote for my sake, not for her own. It happened that I had been kind to some cousin of hers, and she thought she ought to warn me that you were not free."

His eyes flashed. "If I had been free, what price Ninian's chance?" he asked, with a sneer.

"No human creature has a chance as long as Nin is above ground," was her tender reply. "I only liked talking to you because every now and then you are so astonishingly like him--superficially."

"Well, Nin, I congratulate you, from the bottom of my heart," said Wolf, in a softer tone.

"I feel as if, seeing that I am going to be one of the family, I ought to scold you, Wolf," said Olwen. "But somehow I can't. I feel too happy to scold. However, there is one thing I must do, and that is, to set you a penance. I want you to go upstairs to Madam--she is much better this evening--and tell her, quite quietly and simply, that Lily is your wife. You owe this to Ninian, for she is quite sure that it is he who has done what you have done. I must tell you frankly that, until you do this, and acknowledge your wife, you and I won't be friends."

Ninian interposed, in a bashful, muttering fashion. "Don't ask him to tell her! She loves him best, and it doesn't hurt her half as much to think I have done a shabby thing as it would to think that he had."

Olwen lifted her gaze to the Colonel's moody, handsome face. Her eyes were alight with joy and pride in her lover. "You hear that, Wolf?" she asked a little chokily. "That's your brother--your twin; won't you show yourself worthy of him? Must all the generosity be his to the very end?"

His look dwelt upon her, half resentment, half admiration. "By jove, Ninian, you and I are going to be shown our places now, aren't we?" he sneered.

"Always told her she was a school-marm," replied Nin, his mouth curved sideways into his most crooked grin.

Wolf turned away, with an envious look under his eyelashes. He walked the length of the room, came slowly back half-way, wavered a minute, then went out, closing the door behind him.

"It won't hurt her, Nin," said Olwen gently; "she likes Lily, and she has brooded for so long over what she imagined to be your deceit. It is best to tell her the truth, and then I can write to Lily to-night and invite her to the wedding."

"Trust you to manage it all," remarked he, with a chuckle of intense satisfaction.

THE END